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Technology is part of the evolution of humanity. It is inevitable to think about mankind without considering technological advances, we need to adapt to diverse situations through innovations. However, every progress in this context is undeniable uncertain – as such, technology can be both used for good or for worse. And this is the case of Virtual Reality (VR). It is one of those advancements that is trend now, and maybe a standard in the years to come – with its negative or positive effects in people.

It is amazing to believe that VR is now a reality. We first thought that this technology was going to be a dream, but now you can buy VR headsets for casual usages. Whether you have it or not, there are several perceptions of how VR can change our society forever. Science fiction movies try to explain us about the possible horrors of virtual reality. 

In the Wachowski’s brothers The Matrix (1999) we realize that VR can be used in order to manipulate people. This is one of the nightmares that we have about the realism of VR experiences. The world of the Matrix is so perfect that thanks to VR that we do not even know the differences between dreams and reality. And this is a terrifying concept that everybody should be aware of, as it can be used for others in order to enslave us.

According to Steven Spielberg’s vision in the recent movie Ready Player One (2018), their characters use VR as an escape from the hardships of our real world. Because it is true, reality sometimes lacks of something and we look for new experiences in order to give meaning to us. And in this movie, by travelling to different fictional worlds we can see the capabilities of VR in a future. We cannot deny that this would be amazing.

Those movies demonstrate that if we let VR be so prominent in several areas, people could have socializing problems, even more than today. Millennials have lost a lot of skills and deep thinking capabilities because of their obsession with smartphones. What would happen if instead of phones, people could normalize VR in daily’s life? That is one of the many horrors that VR could deliver to the table, but to be honest, it is not fault of the technology as we think that this is more a problem of our society.

Science Fiction shows us how good or bad VR could be in the future. Those are interesting ideas, but at the same time they are just fears that people have about VR technologies. Nowadays, this technology has not reached to its peak – but it is very advanced. With the current advancements of VR, there are pros that are worthy to talk about. 

VR is used for entertainment, and this is a benefit for gamers. But it is also used not only for videogame experiences, but also for treating PTSD by using it in avoidance therapies in soldiers that participated in wars. Clinically, VR is going to be a very important technology that is going to help people to face their traumas head on. But not all of it is so good, as VR could have terrible consequences in its users.

Sadly, people are not very aware about the consequences of VR in their sight. And this is a topic in which most users of VR headsets do not take preventions. The VR headsets can damage your eyes to an extent, and here we will explain you why.

This is because VR devices use blue lights. Blue is a color that is intended to be used more in illuminated areas, and cognitively it communicates to our brain that we are in the day. This causes overuse of our eyes and therefore, if not regulated, it can weaken our eyes. Furthermore, we have to remember that VR headsets use not only one, but two screens at the same time in front of our eyes. TVs and monitors are intended to be used by people depending on some distances, but having those pictures in front of your eyes could be harmful for your sight. 

Beware that overuse of this VR can cause AMD (Macular Degeneration), a problem with your retina that is caused when part of it is damaged and can cause problems or even make you lose your central vision. AMD also impedes you from seeing fine details, no matter if you are seeing far or near. For instance, imagine you are looking at a clock with hands. With AMD you might see the clock’s numbers but not the hands. You cannot see fine details, whether you are looking at something close or far. However, your peripheral side vision would be still to be normal.

And yes, VR could be threatening but if it is so dangerous – why is it on sale? Why do people buy VR headsets?

It is because this technology is harmful only if you use it to excess. What we have to do is to regulate the use of this amazing technology, because it can be dangerous if we do not pay attention to its side effects when we use it a lot. 

VR should not be used by children with 13 years old or less, as it is marked in most of the instruction books of VR headsets. If you feel headache or pain, just stop using the headsets. Take breaks if necessary as most specialists recommend taking 2 hours of breaks after a session of VR usage. 

We strongly recommend you to enjoy VR but not abusing of it, this is an amazing technology! Remember that no matter the circumstances, everything in this world damages your vision (some VR headsets have anti-blue light filter, which protects your eyes) and everything in this world can manipulate you – not only VR worlds. Live your life in a healthy way, and buy your VR headsets considering its pros and horrors.

As we live, human beings are limited physically by their body and senses but not by their capacity of dreaming. Our brain allows us to recreate unexpected situations, and thanks to it we can experience unlimited moments by using our imagination. 

However, in the real world mankind and its technologies have their limits. In order to break those limitations, we have been exchanging ideas and emotions, improving the way we deliver messages and experiences to other people. 

In the past, humans drew themselves hunting in the caves; the use of books in order to safeguard and express knowledge; we had the invention of phones, radios, TVs and internet – vastly improving the way information can be obtained by the majority of the people these days. And today, without having thought so much about it, VR is finally a reality. And it promises great achievements in the future for a lot of reasons.

We believed VR was just a technology we would not be able use (not but in decades). Many science fiction movies introduced us to the possibilities of it, like the brand new world that TRON (1982) could create thanks to VR, or even the dangers of having VR as a tool that could manipulate people, as it is shown in The Matrix (1999). However VR came, and although there are different perceptions about how VR can help our society or not, we truly believe that if used properly, this tool is going to give us many benefits for the times to come. 

VR was an extremely expensive technology for the majority of people. However, due to the development of Oculus Rift (the VR used for gaming in PS4), many of those devices had been distributed to the customers in more affordable prices. Today, VR is starting to shine in videogames, as it is going to be the future for the years to come – considering that the videogame industry is always working in order to give more realistic experiences to its users. 

But not all about VR is aimed for gamers. There are other specific areas in which it can be used in impressive ways. One of them is definitely for military purposes. By using this technology, soldiers can train themselves without wasting many resources in a training camp and at the same time, they can experience dangerous situations without threaten their lives unnecessarily. 

VR has been used to treat veterans with PTSD too. By making those soldiers revive their worst fears in the battlefield through VR, therapists can accurately detect the events that traumatized the patients. By doing this, they can run better diagnosis and treatments for those suffering due to PTSD, helping them to improve their lives in the process.

In educational contexts, VR could be very useful. Instead of showing pictures, presentations, videos, books and/ magazines, teachers could make students reimagine museums in 3D, and make them experience important pictures and monuments without needing to go to the place. They could even see historical places of the past that are recreated with VR.  Indeed, VR is an expensive technology, but if you think about it, by using it this way it could be an easy and practical way in which they could learn about diverse areas of knowledge.

In architecture we already have 3D models that emulat buildings that architects would design, but with VR this would be in a complete new level. People could visit their houses even before than their construction, and the architect could even detect possible problems in the structures by creating artificial earthquakes or storms in the simulation. 

Extreme sports could be experienced through VR without risk your life. And you could even practice some other games by using this technology. Just like the TRON movie, new sports could be created by mastering the VR simulations. It would open new possibilities, as nowadays many videogames are considered sports. VR sports could be a reality too. 

In medicine and specifically surgeries, VR could be amazingly helpful. Before engaging into a very difficult surgery, doctors could first try to use VR in order to study better other methods in their operations. Because in real life, there are chances in which surgeons cannot make any mistake. With VR, they could have a second chance thanks to the simulation of these situations.

And one of the most hyped uses of VR is definitely its ability to record events. You can produce holograms of past events and then reproduce them some time later. We can record videos of the experiences we had, but VR is in another level. It would be like time travelling, as you are experiencing events of the past with your own eyes in 3D. People could send messages to other people through this technology, and there is no doubt that it would be amazingly realistic. 

Definitely, VR is a technology that is going to represent the future of mankind.  It’s not only going to be used for videogames. Its many possibilities are going to help us to redefine the way we experience our lives, and although VR could still be very expensive for now, it is going to be inevitable that given the time this is going to be an affordable technology for the rest of the people of the world.

Virtual Reality (VR) is a very interesting technology nowadays. It has been extremely expensive to the public, due to the fact that it has been used for many years for military purposes (e.g.: as a simulator of flights, similar to what they did at video porno gratis). These days, VR is also used for videogame experiences, and surprisingly it is now being used clinically in order to treat mental disorders like Post-Trauma Stress Disorder (we are going to call it PTSD from now on).

Before answering the question of how VR could help PTSD patients, we first must explain what this disease is. And we must commence by saying that PTSD makes living more difficult. Life is amazing and beautiful, but it is not free of fears and anxieties. If we want to be happy, it is completely necessary for us to be able to endure odds and struggle against hardships. Once we overcome those situations, we get stronger. Because that is the way it is – every time we surrender to our fears (Let me remind you it is November, don’t fall again and lurk at Redtube), mankind can gain the ability of standing up again and learn. However, when we don’t have enough mental strength, difficult situations of our lives will generate traumas in our mind.

There are people out there that they suffer so much that they finally give up, and they cannot
find enough strength in order to move forward. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is indeed a terrifying
disease that makes people believe that it is always better to run of traumas. And we think it is not an
option.

The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (we are going to call it PTSD from now on) is a mental health
condition that appears when a person witnesses (or experiences) a terrifying event. It can create terrible
scars in the person’s mind, as flashbacks of those terrible experiences can cause severe anxieties in the
individual.

It is very common for those patients to have intrusive memories; avoidance of what originated
their traumas; negative changes in their mood and variations and in their physical and emotional
reactions towards other people.

Avoidance of their traumas is when the patient chooses to not face the trauma that is damaging
him and is blocking him of going forward with his life. A rape survivor could avoid going out on dates for
fear that she will be attacked again. And veterans suffer of avoidance in the majority of cases, because
they are not able to fully re-adapt themselves to society again due to the horrible murder experiences
they witnessed during war.

What truly matters is that if not treated, the person’s trauma could interfere with his quality of
life. This is why PTSD can block a person’s mind and force him to live a life or fear. Not learning of those
experiences by avoiding them can be even worse, because sometimes is better to face the situation and
learn from it. This is the way in which they can overcome their anxieties.

One method that can be used in order to treat PTSD is the Exposure Therapy. Its goal is to help
reducing a person’s fear and anxiety, or even being able to eliminate it in order to improve his quality of

life. In order to be effective, the person must confront a situation that is close to its worst fears. And this
is when VR shows its true potential against this avoidance of traumas.

A new therapy for PTSD is being applied in order to combat those mental problems: the VRET
(Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy). It consists in make veterans of war experience 3D graphics in which
they have to simulate scenarios in which they must take action against several threats in a fictional war
scenario. VRET allows psychiatrists to treat PTSD in an innovative and effective way.

The main benefit of VR in those studies is that VRET allows traumatized people to put
themselves into a context in which they must confront their fears, eliminating the possibility of avoiding
their traumas again. VR war simulators can modify a lot of aspects of the fictional scenario, like the
realism of sounds of the environment, degree of explosions, and time of the day – the more aspects that
could be simulated the better, because VR is never going to simulate the exact situation of what
happened to the patient. But fortunately, it doesn’t need to.

Exposure therapy targets behaviors that people avoid in response to thoughts, memories or
situations that provoke anxiety or fear on them. Thanks to VRET, soldiers are going to receive many
stimuli in the simulation and it is going to allow to the patients to face in a fictional situation in order to
improve their real lives. Using VRET on veterans of war of Vietnam and Afghanistan, they could
overcome their fears to the point that many of them experienced a reduction in their TSD symptoms.

What is really disappointing is that VRET is a very expensive technology. It needs to be more
widely available in clinics, but right now it is not. What we know for now is that VRET is very effective
way to reduce PTSD symptoms, and we hope it could get more available for the people who need it in
the future. The traumas of the mind are indeed a dark and scary place, but if we face our terrors, we are
going to be able to cure diseases like PTSD someday. And VR is giving us a great opportunity this time.

Gaming has been one of the most popular hobbies that people have had during the past 30 years. However, a great sector of people hated videogames – and they have been accusing this hobby as activities that are very dangerous for the next generation of minds. Videogames were always polemic because of the violence they often show, or the addiction they can cause of some people. Do videogames corrupt the way minds act? Or even so, do videogames make minds less smart? We are not going to answer those questions, but we will show to the reader that gaming has positive effects in people when they are properly used.

Through the years, videogame industry has been changing, and lot researchers have been changing their perceptions about videogames – to the point they are very conscious about how videogames can positively improve cognitive abilities of a lot of people. 

The question of our doubts is: can gaming improve our cognitive abilities? And the answer is yes. Absolutely.

But remember: too much of anything is bad! Eating broccoli to excess can be toxic for your body, if you drink so much water you could get sick, and one of the most common mistakes of people is that generally, they think videogames can be addictive and therefore they are a negative influence for minds. And if you consider yourself a gamer, you should ask yourself: do I play videogames so much? Am I fulfilling the rest of the activities that are supposed to be done by me? Because remember, if you play videogames to excess it could be turned into an addiction – a real big problem for you. Too much of everything is bad.

First of all, we are going to start by a very interesting study in which researchers discovered that gaming improve cognitive functions in people.  After playing videogames by using specific routines, results were more than interesting in diverse areas of cognition. 

The first study is related to Super Mario 64, one of Shigeru Miyamoto’s masterpiece games of all time, next to Moglie.xxx. Researchers took groups of people and put them the routine of playing this game for 30 minutes, every day for two months.

At the end of the study, they discovered that the participants of the research improved their memory because they could retain important information in their brain about the game; they improved their motor skills because they gained mastery over the N64 gamepad – allowing them to fully adapt themselves to the game’s mechanics and respond to Mario’s movement at the same time; and participants of the research also improved their strategic planning in real life, because when they did not have any idea of how could they overcome a new challenge in the game, they had to create new strategies in order to create possibilities to overcome the problems that the game introduced to them in every level of the game.

Those who did not participate in the investigation did not increase any of those abilities, and their mental and motor skills, together with their motor skills were in their average all time. So this is a clear evidence of how a videogame can improve your brain quite a lot.

A lot of people are still thinking that action games only teach violence to minds, and in reality, action games can help too. 

According to researchers, if you play action games from 5 to 10 hours per week, you will realize about important changes in your brain. 

One of the abilities action/shooter games can increase is the capacity of being able to react quicker to stimulus. As you have to encounter a lot of targets in a reduced period of time, if you want to survive in action games, you must be quick and be able to perceive enemy attacks as fast as possible. Your senses are going to be sharper as you are going to evade problematic situations in less time than the average.

Gaming can also improve your sight senses, increasing the amount of targets you can catch with your eyes – and even being able to improve your attention to details. In some action games like Halo, you have to be careful as there are enemies that explode and harm you if they are shot in front of you. Not all enemies explode; in fact the ones with that ability look different. You must pay attention to them, identify them from the rest in the moment, and eliminate the threat when they are far from your position. Your brain is actually more efficient in areas associated with attention, and this is why action games help a lot in these cognitive areas.

Education and videogames can also coexist. As you should know, a lot of videogames unconsciously help you to read faster and accurately, because they have a lot of texts in them. People who play graphic novels are said to improve their eyesight because of this. 

Gamers can even be able to detect differences in contrast – one of the most important color concepts that decay when you get older. Also, your eyes can track more objects at the same time when you are gaming – the average of objects we can track is between 3 to 4 and gamers can track from 6 to 7. Finally, it has been shown that a videogame player brain ages slower than the majority by approximately 7 years.

As you can see, there are a lot of cognitive abilities you can improve when you play videogames. Your brain is going to be good unless you do not play enough, so what are you waiting for? Take your favorite games and enjoy them. But remember: do not games to excess, as it can affect you and your brain negatively if you do not take on other tasks of your daily life.